http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/260674/atlantic-freedom-speech-victimizes-muslims-daniel-greenfield
*The Atlantic: Freedom of Speech Victimizes Muslims* Look who suffers under freedom of speech November 9, 2015 *Daniel Greenfield* <http://www.frontpagemag.com/author/daniel-greenfield> *10* <http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/260674/atlantic-freedom-speech-victimizes-muslims-daniel-greenfield#disqus_thread> *3014* [image: Description: http://www.frontpagemag.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_full/public/uploads/2015/11/behead_those_who_insult_islam_1.jpg?itok=jeudPo9X] T*here was yet another decision* <http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2015/10/even_loathsome_speech_is_prote.html> in the Bible Believers case. *The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday found that Wayne County violated the constitutional rights of a group of religious proselytizers who were kicked out of an Arab-American cultural festival in 2012.* *In a rare reversal of a previous decision from three-judge appeals court panel, an en banc review by 15 judges yielded a majority ruling that Wayne County is civilly liable to the group of evangelical Christians who sued after being ordered to leave the festival by sheriff's deputies.* *The court found that even though the group attended the festival with the intention of offending Muslims using "loathsome" messages of "gross intolerance," their speech is protected by the First Amendment, and should have protected by the sheriff's office.* This is a thoroughly predictable outcome. It used to be the standard liberal position. "Used to" being the key words. The Atlantic's *Garrett Epps claims* <http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/first-amendment-troubling-shadow/413611/> that the First Amendment victimizes Muslims. *Bible Believers displays vividly the underlying strength of the American commitment to free speech—and the troubling shadow that commitment inevitably casts.* The troubling shadow being... freedom. *But we pay a price for this freedom, and not everyone pays the price equally. The First Amendment imposes on us all the duty to maintain the peace even when our deepest beliefs are denounced. But that duty is doubly onerous for minorities, because they must endure such abuse more often and longer.* *In a country that is 70 percent Christian, Muslims account for less than one percent of the population. Since 9/11, powerful religious and political figures have been openly campaigning to strip this tiny population of the protections of the Constitution.* It's a typical leftist tactic to flip a freedom around into a burden. Look who suffers under freedom of speech. Minorities. To protect them, we might maybe sorta have to get rid of it. Isn't freedom just privilege? What about voting? It rewards the majority. Think of the heavy burden of democracy on the minority? Wouldn't they be better off under an enlightened dictator? *In that context, the Bible Believers’ speech, though protected, was far from harmless... I wish I could talk to Irv Feiner about Bible Believers. He was a better lawyer than many who took the bar, and a better American than those who tried to ruin his life. His imagination, I think, would have room for concern about both the Muslim people of Dearborn and the aggressive bigots who destroyed their peaceful fair.* As opposed to the aggressive Muslim bigots who violently attacked them while shouting Allah Akbar? Epps assumes that freedom of speech just empowers majorities to attack minorities. But Muslims are a global majority compared to Americans and the internet makes few distinctions between global Muslim hatred and local Muslim hatred. That's what enabled Anwar Al-Awlaki to do what he did. Muslim terrorists in the US are often the products of international Muslim hate speech. When it comes to inciting hatred that leads to violence, the disproportionate share of it remains on the Muslim side. Despite the constant chatter about Islamophobia and blowback, thousands of Americans have been killed by Muslim hatred. The number of Muslims killed by Americans out of bigotry is so small that it has to be padded out by non-bigoted violence like the Chapel Hill shootings or hoax cases like Shaima Alawadi. If freedom of speech empowers majorities at the expense of minorities, consider the Islamic alternative found throughout the Muslim world, in which speech critical of Islam is a crime while Islamic attacks on others cannot be challenged by non-Muslims. Furthermore, the heckler's veto in the West has been exercised far more frequently by Muslims. Just ask a cartoonist. The attacks on the First Amendment on behalf of Muslims attempt to impose a heckler's veto in the name of political correctness that is often indistinguishable from the one which Muslims impose by violence. If Epps thinks the First Amendment is such a burden, he should living without it in Pakistan or Iran. What happened in Dearborn showed the danger of that kind of thinking. We've let Nazis march through Skokie and allowed Westboro's protesters to scream hate at the funerals of soldiers. Yet somehow Muslims are special. They deserve an exemption from American freedoms when no one else does. That's not protection. That's privilege. __._,_.___ ------------------------------ Posted by: "Beowulf" <[email protected]> ------------------------------ Visit Your Group <https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/grendelreport/info;_ylc=X3oDMTJmNm9nbTZxBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE0BGdycElkAzIwMTk0ODA2BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTMyMzY2NwRzZWMDdnRsBHNsawN2Z2hwBHN0aW1lAzE0NDcxMDIzODY-> [image: Yahoo! 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